“I’d totally kill for a dysfunctional family moment,” he answers, his hands running along his jawline.
“Me too.”
“I’ll be your pain-in-the-ass family if you’ll be mine,” Luke says, smiling.
“I thought I already was.”
His lips spread now into a full smile, perhaps the first genuine grin I’ve seen from Luke in weeks. I can feel a smile parting my own lips, relief trapped in a happy sigh in my throat.
The sound of tires hitting gravel turns my head back toward the window. A black SUV pulls into the parking lot and the rush of warmth that filled my body immediately turns cold.
It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing.
My mind tries to calm the fear that has already vacated air from my chest. And if the sight of a blacked-out car at three o’clock in the morning wasn’t worrisome enough, there’s one more fact that’s causing the alarms to go off in every part of me: their headlights are off. In a snowstorm. They don’t want to be seen.
“Reagan,” Luke says quietly, his body rising out of his chair.
“I see them,” I answer, my voice fighting the terror that’s building inside. “Could it be?”
The SUV pulls slowly through the parking lot, bypassing the lobby. Either they already have room keys or the people in that car aren’t here to sleep.
They’re here to kill us.
As the SUV moves closer and closer to our room, my legs stand, wobbly and straining. And as I search for faces behind the dark windows, tiny patches of black enter my sight and I have to force myself to breathe before I pass out.
The SUV pulls carefully and silently into a parking spot, five doors down from our room. And as the driver turns off the engine, I see it. The barrel of a semiautomatic weapon.
Holy. Shit.
“Harper, wake up,” I say, flying across the room and throwing the covers off of her. Harper’s eyelids lazily rise, like she’s just taking a nap on the beach, and I have to resist the urge to slap her awake. Instead, I pull at her arm. “Harper. Get up. Now!”
“What is it?” she finally asks, the gravity in my voice quickly pulling her out of her state of unconsciousness.
“They found us,” I say and that’s enough for her to jump out of the bed.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she shrieks, her voice building with each word until I put my hand over her mouth.
“Stop,” I hiss in her ear, my hand still over her trembling lips. “They’ll hear you.”
Luke reaches for the half-closed curtains, ready to pull them together completely.
“Luke. No,” I whisper loudly a half a second before he can force the shabby fabric shut. “They’ll see the movement and know we’re in this room.”
Luke nods and reaches under the table, pulling another pistol out of our weapons bag. He tosses it on the bedspread and it slides toward me. I let go of Harper and grab the gun, tucking it into the back of my pants.
“How do we get out?” Harper whispers, her eyes feral with panic, her hands involuntarily shaking at her sides.
My head swivels, quickly scanning the room, stopping on the open bathroom door.
The window. I remember seeing it when I brushed my teeth. It’s small, but it’s our only way out.
I can hear heavy boots outside, attempting to be quiet. They’re searching each window, trying to figure out which room is ours.
I put my finger to my lips and point toward the bathroom door. Luke takes three large steps across our small room, reaching it first while I put my hands on Harper’s frozen body and push her toward our only chance of escape. Luke pulls back the shower curtain, revealing a small window six feet off the ground. I close and lock the bathroom door behind us (even though they’ll be able to kick in this rickety, hollow door in two seconds or less).
“Damn it, it’s all rusted,” Luke laments as he struggles with the window’s lock. “I don’t think this thing’s been opened in twenty years.”
“This is my fault,” Harper whispers, her arms wrapped around her chest, her body rocking back and forth, as Luke continues to push and push on the sealed window.
“What are you talking about?” I whisper, turning Harper’s trembling body toward me. My own nerves have shut down. I’m robotic. Numb.
“My parents,” she whispers, tears now falling silently down her face. “I called my parents from the church.”
“Harper, how could you?” I want to scream but control the volume of my voice, knowing any sound will give us away.
“I called from the phone in the church office,” she says, her lips quivering so hard, she’s barely able to form the words. “No one was in there. I saw the desk. I saw the phone. It was only for sixty seconds. I just … I wanted to hear their voices. I wanted to wish them Merry Christmas.”
“Harper, their phones are tapped,” I say. “Torres’s people have been waiting for you to call. What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t think they could find us here,” she says, now sobbing and shaking her head, her wavy hair matting to the wet patches on her face. “I didn’t think … I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Shhh,” I say and grab her quivering hands.
Harper finally looks up at me, the rims of her eyes wet and blazing red. She clasps my hands around both of hers, brings them up to her face, and whispers, “Are we going to die?”
“I don’t know,” I say, swallowing at the lump that’s hardening against the back of my throat.
Maybe.
But I can’t say it out loud. All I know is if we don’t get out of this room in the next thirty seconds, maybe will become definitely.
Luke finally forces the window out of its seemingly immovable layers of paint and decades of rust, pushing it open. I glance up just as a gust of wind spits snow through its opening. The gap is just wide enough to fit us through, but we’ll each need a boost up.
“Come on, Harper,” Luke says, cupping his hands together to lift her up and out the window. I look Harper up and down in my borrowed pajama pants and thin, gray T-shirt as she steadies her hands on our shoulders, her bare right foot pushing down into Luke’s hands. I want to run into the other room and grab her shoes. She’ll get frostbite in the snow.
They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming.
I shake my head, clearing my brain’s taunting chant. There’s no time. Besides, amputated toes are better than slit throats.
“Harper. Listen to me,” I say, my voice urgent as I push her body up the shower wall. “Once you get outside … run. Don’t stop. Just run.”
“Run where?” she asks as she pulls herself up to the window. “It’s all woods behind the motel.”
“Just run into the woods and keep running until we call for you,” I answer as I help push her body through our only chance of survival. “We will find you, okay?”
“Okay,” she answers, her voice already sounding so far away. I watch her slip out the window and my chest tightens as I wonder if these are the last words we’ll ever exchange, the last time I’ll see her alive.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“Shit,” I whisper, pushing Luke toward the window. “Come on. Go. They’re breaking down the door.”
“No, you first,” he says, holding out his hands to boost me up. I hesitate for half a second, but I know arguing with him is pointless. We just need to get out of here. I accept his boost and with shaking limbs, pull myself up the tiled wall, through the window, and climb down on to the snow-covered ground.
A few seconds later, Luke’s head pokes out the window. A second more and he’s down on the ground. And that’s when we hear it.
Crack.
The door frame has broken. They’re in our room.
“Go, go, go,” Luke commands, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the dark woods, just ten yards behind the motel.
Thick snowflakes fly up my nose, in my mouth, along my cheek, down my shirt as we sprint into the darkness. I’m lucky to still be wearing my
boots, but the snow is cold and deep, up to the middle of my calf, slowing my legs as I run. The tree line gets thicker the farther we run into the woods and after thirty seconds of running, my breath leaves my chest as I realize Harper’s footprints are gone.
“Shit,” I say and turn around, searching for the deep gaps in white I saw less than ten seconds ago. “Where did Harper turn? I don’t see her footprints anywhere.”
“Ve, ve, ve!” I hear a voice yelling behind us. “Encuentralos!”
Go, go, go! I translate in my head. Find them.
“Reagan, we can’t,” Luke says, pulling me along, fighting my body’s urge to turn around and find our friend. “Come on. We have to keep moving.”
He’s right. If they find us first, Harper is as good as dead.
I scan the ground once more, looking for her trail, then spin my body around, running after Luke in the equivalent of icy quicksand, my breath heaving from my body in puffy, frozen clouds.
Move, Reagan. Move, my mind commands, pushing my legs faster and faster, each muscle threatening to tear in the below-freezing temperatures. I follow Luke and his giant strides, sidestepping trees, ducking under branches, and hurdling over fallen logs. Evergreen needles poke at my face and rotting leaves stick to the legs of my jeans as we run farther into the dark, Iowa forest. My heart twinges with each anguished pound against my breastbone and despite my attempts at Black Angel numbness, my chest feels like it’s filling with fluid, hovering on the edge of a panic attack.
“No! No!” I hear Harper’s voice scream and every muscle in me seizes up as I jump over a fallen branch. “Reagan! Reagan!”
My feet trip and my body crashes to the ground. Despite the pain of snow down my back and tree limbs against my ribs, I push myself up and turn back toward the motel. Back toward my screaming friend and the men who are trying to kill her.
“Reagan, stop,” Luke yells twenty-five yards behind me as I sprint toward Harper’s screams. “Wait, Reagan. Wait!”
“No! Please! Reagan! Luke! Help me!” Harper’s piercing cries pull me toward her and further away from Luke’s pleas to stop.
I know what I’m running into. I know the danger. But without me, Harper will die. And I cannot listen to the sound of my friend being killed. I cannot live with more blood on my hands.
“Reagan!” I hear her cry out one last time, her desperation echoing into the dark void of the endless forest. Then come muffled screams. Someone’s hand is over her mouth, but she’s still fighting to stay alive.
My body pulls me toward the right, toward the echo of her horrified shrieks for help. I slow my pace, trying to move silently through thick snow. I pull the gun from the back of my pants, positioning my body up against a thick and leafless tree. My shoulders rub against the fraying bark as I peer my head around, waiting to hear Harper once more.
And that’s when I feel it.
It corners me, soundlessly, digging into the back of my neck. My body tenses as it presses deeper into my flesh. I recognize it instantly because I’ve been bracing for it for years: the unmistakable, circular barrel of a loaded gun.
FOURTEEN
“Drop the gun,” a gruff voice says from behind me. I hesitate, looking at the gun outstretched in front of me, an extension of my own arms, my only certain line of defense. With one breath, I consider my options. Spin around and face the assassin, try to blow his head off before he can blow off mine. Or drop the gun and trust that my fighting skills will give me a chance to escape.
“Drop. It,” he says, each word forceful and deliberate.
Click.
Every hair on the back of my neck rises in unison. He’s turned off the safety. He’s not bluffing. Not that I’d expect anything less from someone trained by a merciless killer like Santino Torres. My fingers reluctantly release their grip on the gun. My eyes stay locked on my pistol as it free-falls in what feels like slow motion, turning on its side, before disappearing into a pile of snow.
“Hands up,” he commands, his gun still burrowing into the top of my spine. One pull of the trigger and I’ll be dead. My face buzzes, my entire body paralyzed. I stare straight ahead, looking for Harper, praying silently for Luke to appear. But there is no one. Just darkness, leafless trees, and snow.
“I said hands up,” the man repeats, his voice transitioning from impatience to anger. I do as he says. My arms slowly lift, my fingers spread apart. Freezing air enters my lungs in small, panicked gasps as I wait for the moment that I can make a move. Any move.
“La tengo,” the man yells out. I’ve got her.
“Donde estás?” someone calls back. Where are you? The voice sounds far away. Hundreds of yards away even. The gun’s pressure on my neck begins to ease up enough for me to feel a tiny gap of cold air where the gun’s barrel used to be. He thinks he’s won.
He’s wrong.
With a final, desperate breath, I spin around, stepping into the shooter and away from the line of the gun. I wrap my arm around his and shove my free elbow hard into his chest, knocking his body off balance. I grab his shoulder with my hand as I push my knee into his groin, throwing his body forward, cries of pain springing from his tongue. My hand slides away from his shoulder, up his arm and toward the gun, as I attempt to wrestle it out of his hands.
“Puta,” the assailant calls out. Bitch. It’s not the first time one of Torres’s men has called me that.
Despite the pain and pressure on his hand, he grips the gun. Hard. He’s not letting go. I slam my elbow into his face again, feeling his nose crack into the point of my bone. Before I even see the blood, I know it’s broken.
“Puta!” he shrieks. I push my hand up against the gun again, trying to pry it from his hand while the white snow is dotted in crimson polka dots, blood dripping down his face.
I push down again on the gun, knowing if I can get this weapon out of his hands, maybe I will live. Maybe I’ll have a chance to get Harper back.
The assailant screams as I twist his arms, and finally the gun goes flying, swallowed by white, lost in the deep snow.
Where is it? Where is it?
My eyes scan the piles of snow, splattered with blood and gaping footprints. It could be anywhere.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Where is it?!
My body dives toward the frozen patch where I suspect the gun may be but before I can begin to dig, the man tackles me to the ground. My face, my torso, my arms and legs are surrounded by snow, his 250-pound body pushing me deeper and deeper into the collection of frozen white flakes. I try to take in a breath, but snow gets sucked into my mouth and finds its way up my nose. My body begins to shake, the cold deteriorating my muscles and weakening my resolve, as his hands find my neck.
No, no, no!
His fingers dig into my flesh, pushing out what I fear could be my last breath.
I pull my trembling hands up to my throat, trying to loosen his grip. But my hands are slick and freezing. I open my eyes, expecting to see white, but this deep down, the ice crystals are black.
No. I will not die like this. Suffocating in snow.
The grip on my neck tightens and I can hear his angry, determined groans even through my snow-packed eardrums. I thrash from side to side but can barely move. I try to breathe, desperate for even half gasp, but no air comes.
Do something. Do something.
The combination of no air and freezing cold means death in a matter of seconds. I push my hands down through several inches of snow until I find solid ground.
Go, Reagan. Go!
My fingers dig deep into the dirt and with every ounce of strength I have left in me, I push up, surprising the assailant, his lethal grip loosening on my neck. With one more push, I scream and roll his body off of mine. Another elbow to his face and I feel the crack of another bone.
“Mierda,” he screams as his hands let me free, instinctively grabbing at his eye, his orbital bone now broken as well.
Don’t screw with me, I think as I lunge for the gun once again. I dig through
the snow. And then, I see it, a black handle in a sea of white.
Boom.
Before I can get my hands on the pistol, my head is knocked backward, a foot thrust into my face at jaw-breaking speed. As I lie on my back, staring up into darkness, the iron taste of blood fills my mouth and then, there’s a body on top of mine. Broken-nose and orbital-bone free, a second assailant has found us.
“Luke!” I scream at the top of my lungs, my own blood spitting out across the man’s face. He slaps my aching cheek with the back of his hand, my lip splitting and jaw cracking again under the force of his hand.
Help me, Luke. Help me.
I struggle under the weight of the man now straddling my torso. I try to push my body up, attempting to catch him off guard with a head butt. But before my forehead can meet his, my body is being forced back down, my arms pinned on either side. The first assailant has me by both wrists. I try to wiggle free, but as my body lies in the snow, growing frailer with every passing second, I feel my chance to escape slipping away.
“It’s over,” the first assailant says, his voice thin and out of breath. Blood drips out of his eye and nose and onto my face, mixing with my own. “It’s over.”
Tears burn the corners of my eyes, a feeling of hopelessness burrowing in my chest. My mind can always play through scenarios of how to escape, but as I lie in two feet of snow, with two trained killers holding me down, for the first time in my life, I don’t see a way out. So I stop struggling. I stop fighting. I let them win.
After a few moments of staring at me, making sure I’ve given up, the two assailants grip me by both arms and pull me to my feet. My sweatshirt and jeans cling to me, every inch of my skin is soaked, every part of me shaking, just minutes away from full-out hypothermia.
“Give me your hands,” the first assailant says, pulling my wrists roughly together behind my back. He slips on a zip tie, pulling at the plastic, securing my almost certain doom.
“Don’t even think about running,” the second assailant insists, a gun now pointed at my skull. So I don’t. I know any movement will mean a bullet to my brain. So I put my head down. I stand still. I try to stay alive.
You Won't See Me Coming Page 10